THE FIRST CHAPTERS
Football rookie cards
Every story has a first card. Discover each player’s first year in our catalogue.
Every card from their first recorded year, across all collections. Filters narrow the results without recalculating that year.
Ben Watson
Watford · 2015-16All RounderFolarin Balogun
AS Monaco · 2024-25Top Of The WorldAnthony Elanga
Manchester United · 2021-22U23 Stars (1:8 Packets)Stylianos Venetidis
Greece · 2004BaseRuslan Malinovskyi
Atalanta BC · 2020-21Uefa Champions League Match Attax Extra 2020/21 - BallerFrancis Coquelin
Arsenal · 2015-16BaseElliott Bennett
Norwich City · 2015-16BaseWayne Routledge
Swansea City · 2015-16BaseRyan Shawcross
Stoke City · 2015-16CaptainYounes Kaboul
Sunderland · 2015-16BaseCraig Gardner
West Bromwich Albion · 2015-16BaseJames Tomkins
West Ham United · 2015-16BaseMaxime Le Marchand
Fulham · 2018-19FulhamAaron Wan-Bissaka
Crystal Palace · 2018-19Rising StarMiguel Gutiérrez
Real Madrid · 2021-222021-22 Topps Merlin Chrome UefaJean Michael Seri
Fulham · 2018-19Man Of The MatchMarek Rodak
Fulham · 2020-21BaseConor Coady
Wolverhampton Wanderers · 2018-19Wolverhampton WanderersDele Alli
Tottenham Hotspur · 2015-16BaseIan Poveda
Leeds United · 2020-21BaseCarlos Vinicius
Tottenham Hotspur · 2020-21BaseRony Lopes
AS Monaco · 2017-18BaseIkechi Anya
Watford · 2015-16BaseHow to find a footballer’s first cards
Find a player and compare their first cards across collections. Filter by publisher, season, team, category and language, view photographs and save the cards you like to your wishlist.
Which cards appear here?
We show individual player cards with a known year. If a player’s first recorded year is 2010, all their 2010 cards and stickers appear, including variants and languages, across the available collections.
Is this the same as an RC logo?
No. Rookie here means the first year recorded in Trading Cards Tracker. We do not certify that this is their first published card or that it carries an official RC logo. Check the edition and its sources for each card.
Can the first year change?
Yes. Adding or correcting an earlier card updates the results. We use the card’s year, not the date it was added to the website or the end of a season. Cards without a year and multi-player cards are excluded from this calculation.
How is each player identified?
We group by the recorded name, normalising accents, spaces and letter case. We do not merge nicknames or different names based on similarity. Aliases and namesakes may need review: check the player, team and collection.